The Pardon

“Because he’s guilty. The fact that I would thoroughly enjoy nailing his ass doesn’t change that. I wouldn’t tag him or any one of those crusaders at the Freedom Institute just to get even. Swyteck did it. I’m convinced of it. He wigged out and blew away his scumbag client. He screwed up-big time. And I want to be the guy who makes him pay.”

The prosecutor sighed heavily. “We can’t be wrong about this one.”

“I’m not wrong. And if you’d seen Swyteck’s face that morning after the murder like I did, you’d know I’m not wrong. I’ve got a feeling about this one, Wilson. Not some flaky feeling you get when you wake up one morning and read your horoscope. This one’s based on a lifetime of police work. And in all the years you’ve known me, have my instincts ever steered you wrong?”

McCue averted his eyes. He had complete trust in his friend, but the pointed question reminded him that there may very well have been one instance when Lonzo Stafford had steered him wrong-dead wrong. It was a first-degree murder charge that Stafford had built on circumstantial evidence. McCue had gone ahead and prosecuted the case, but by the time it was over, even he was beginning to wonder whether Stafford had tagged the right man. It was academic now, of course. The jury had convicted him. Governor Swyteck had signed his death warrant. The state had put him to death. He was gone. McCue would never forget him, though. His name was Raul Fernandez.

“Let me sleep on it,” McCue told his friend.

“What more do you want?”

He shrugged uneasily. “It’s just that there are so many people who wanted to see Eddy Goss dead. We need to talk to other suspects. We need to talk to neighbors. You need to make sure there isn’t some witness out there, somewhere, who’ll gut the whole case by saying they saw somebody running from Goss’s apartment with smoke pouring from the barrel of a.38-caliber pistol. Somebody who couldn’t possibly be Swyteck. Like a woman, a seven- foot black guy, a friend of one of Goss’s victims, or-”

“A cop,” Stafford interjected, his tone disdainful. “That call to nine-one-one about the cop being around Goss’s apartment has you spooked, doesn’t it?”

McCue removed his eyeglasses. “I’m concerned about it, yeah. And so’s your boss. That’s why he told you about it when he put you on the case.”

Stafford shook his head. “You know as well as I do, Wilson, that if it’d really been a cop who’d blown Goss’s brains out, he wouldn’t have showed up at his apartment wearing a uniform. He would’ve stopped Goss on the street, shot him in ‘self-defense,’ and laid a Saturday-night special in his cold, dead hand.”

Maybe,” said McCue. “But the fact of the matter is that we’re talking about the governor’s son here. And we re talking about a first-degree murder charge. I’m no taking that case to the grand jury until you’ve got some good, hard evidence.”

Stafford’s eyes flared. He looked angry, but he wasn’t. He took it as a challenge. “I’m gonna get it,” he vowed. “I’m gonna get whatever you need to bring Swyteck down.”

McCue nodded. “If it’s out there, I’m sure you will.”

“It’s out there,” Stafford replied, his tone very serious. “I know it’s out there. Because in here,” he thumped his chest, “I know Swyteck’s guilty.” He rose quickly from his chair and started for the door, then shoved his hand in his coat pocket and stopped short, as if he’d suddenly found something. “What the hell’s this?” he asked, clearly overacting as he pulled a plastic bag from his pocket.

McCue smiled. He knew his old friend was up to something.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Stafford as he smacked his hand playfully against his forehead. The Cheshire-cat smile he’d been holding inside was now plastered from ear to ear. “I almost forgot to tell you the best part, Wilson. You see, nobody heard any gunshots at the time of Goss’s murder. Doesn’t seem possible, really, that nobody hears nothin’ in a building like that-unless, of course, the man who plugged Goss had a silencer on his thirty-eight-caliber pistol. Which is why this is so important,” he said as he raised the plastic evidence bag before the prosecutor’s eyes.

“And just what is this?”

“A silencer,” Stafford said smugly, “for a thirty-eight-caliber pistol.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Underneath the front seat of Jack Swyteck’s car.”

McCue’s eyes widened with interest, then concern. “Hope you had a search warrant?”

“Didn’t need one. This came to us via Kaiser Auto Repair-Swyteck’s mechanics. Seems our favorite lawyer brings in his Mustang every other day for something-it’s a real Rent-A-Wreck. Thursday morning, he leaves his car to get the convertible top fixed. A few hours later, the owner of the shop catches one of his mechanics stealing things from the customers’ cars and calls us. One of the cars the grease monkey robbed happened to be Swyteck’s. And what do you suppose shows up in the guy’s loot?” Stafford gave a huge grin. “One silencer.”

“That’s a pretty strange coincidence, Lonnie, that some punk was rifling through Swyteck’s car. You sure it happened that way?”

“Shop owner will back me up a hundred percent,” he said, giving McCue an insider’s wink.

McCue sat back in his chair, folding his hands contentedly on his belly. “Lonnie,” he said with a power grin, “now we’re on to something.”

Chapter 19

“You had forty-three press calls, Governor,” Harry Swyteck’s secretary reported, trailing at the heel of the candidate-by-day/governor-by-night as he rushed into his spacious office. “And that’s just in the last hour.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” the governor groaned as he tossed his charcoal suit coat onto the couch, loosened his tie, and plopped into the high-back leather chair behind his carved mahogany desk, exhausted. Before the campaign, he found it relaxing to nestle into his position of power between the state and American flags, amidst the brass chandeliers, white coffered ceilings, and big arching windows with red velvet drapes that reminded him he was indeed governor. But now that the campaign was in full swing, the opulent surroundings were stark reminders that he had to be re-elected to keep these trappings of power for another four years. “Who did I insult this time?” he asked, only half kidding.

“No one,” his secretary assured him as she placed his hot cup of tea with lemon on his desk. She served without a smile, her expression all business. With her gray hair pulled back and a white silk scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, she had all the warmth of a nun on a vow of silence. When it came to political staffers, however, personality was a small sacrifice for eighteen years of efficiency and undivided loyalty. “I’m sure they’re all trying to get the scoop before the six o’clock news,” she said, “that’s all.”

The governor froze as he brought his teacup to his lips. Even after all these years it still bothered him that Paula always seemed to know everything about late-breaking news before he knew anything about it. “The scoop on what?” he asked with some trepidation.

Her look was more somber than usual. “Your son, of course.”

His trepidation turned to concern. “What about my son?”

“Campbell’s on his way up,” she said, avoiding the question. “He’ll explain.”

Moments later the door flew open, and the governor’s chief aide, Campbell McSwain, rushed into the office, nearly mowing down Paula on her way out. Campbell was a handsome, thirty-eight-year-old Princeton graduate who looked as if he wouldn’t know a blue collar unless it was pinpoint Oxford cloth, but his uncanny ability to portray Harold Swyteck as a regular Joe to the average voter had gone a long way toward winning the election four years ago. Campbell wore his usual Bass loafers, khaki slacks, and a Brooks Brothers blazer over a white polo shirt, but his wide-eyed expression was far less understated.

“Sorry, sir,” Campbell said as he gasped for breath. He’d run all the way to the governor’s office. “I just got off he phone with the Dade County State Attorney’s Office.”

“The state attorney?”

“It’s your son, sir. Our sources tell us he’s the target of grand jury investigation. He’s the prime suspect in the murder of Eddy Goss.”

The governor’s mouth fell open, as if he’d just been punched in the chest. “Goss is dead? And they think Jack